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Marriage (Wales) Bill [Lords]

I declare at the outset that, like the right hon. Member for Cardiff, South and Penarth (Alun Michael), I am a member of the Church in Wales. As he said, the Bill has full cross-party support for all its provisions, and perhaps more importantly, it has the full support of the governing body of the Church in Wales and therefore represents its official policy. As the right hon. Gentleman said, the Bill will bring Church in Wales practice in line with that of the Church of England. He outlined the consequences of the Church of England Marriage Measure 2008, which introduced five additional cases in which marriage banns may be called in a church in a particular parish. As he said, the change in practice was meant to reflect social changes, in that people are far more mobile than they were but nevertheless feel an affinity with a particular place where they have lived, or where a parent or a grandparent has lived, and wish to mark important occasions such as marriage there. The Church in Wales recognises that the change effected by the Church of England is good and sensible and wishes to adopt it too. There is another point that should perhaps be made. Along the often highly populated border between England and Wales, there are parishes that fall within with one ecclesiastical jurisdiction but a different political one. The changes contemplated under the Bill will therefore resolve a great deal of possible confusion, of which there is frankly already enough along the English-Welsh border.